Political Roundtable Part XXVI

[I_Like_Dirt]

I believe all races care about the political landscape - they just have different preferred outcomes. And I am pretty certain in my heart of hearts that most Americans want the mess cleaned up.

I'm not so sure this is actually true. I think the vast majority of Americans will argue they want it cleaned up but their actions will invariably contradict their words to varying degrees. That's the real problem here. There are quite a few voters out there who actively take an interest in cleaning up corruption, environmental issues, etc. but it's not nearly as high as people think. It's not unlike the abortion issue, really, where there are loads of people who claim they want to prevent abortions but then take actions that have nothing to do with preventing abortions at all and everything to do with punishing/vengeance on those that have them along with a dose of moral superiority. You aren't actually interested in fighting corruption if you're voting for Trump, whether you're aware of his history or can't be bothered to look it up. You also aren't actually interested in fighting corruption if you're there benefiting from it directly or indirectly somehow and quietly letting it slide while really only considering others where that issue is concerned. Heck, I would say unions lost out on fighting for labor when they got into outrageous infighting, cost overruns and defending people who really had no business being defended - though they died for entirely different reasons regardless of what a person wants to convince themselves of.

[dckingsfan]

I believe all races care about the political landscape - they just have different preferred outcomes. And I am pretty certain in my heart of hearts that most Americans want the mess cleaned up.

I'm not so sure this is actually true. I think the vast majority of Americans will argue they want it cleaned up but their actions will invariably contradict their words to varying degrees. That's the real problem here. There are quite a few voters out there who actively take an interest in cleaning up corruption, environmental issues, etc. but it's not nearly as high as people think. It's not unlike the abortion issue, really, where there are loads of people who claim they want to prevent abortions but then take actions that have nothing to do with preventing abortions at all and everything to do with punishing/vengeance on those that have them along with a dose of moral superiority. You aren't actually interested in fighting corruption if you're voting for Trump, whether you're aware of his history or can't be bothered to look it up. You also aren't actually interested in fighting corruption if you're there benefiting from it directly or indirectly somehow and quietly letting it slide while really only considering others where that issue is concerned. Heck, I would say unions lost out on fighting for labor when they got into outrageous infighting, cost overruns and defending people who really had no business being defended - though they died for entirely different reasons regardless of what a person wants to convince themselves of.

So you are saying that they first care about their preferred outcome and then about the mess. Agreed!

[I_Like_Dirt]

So you are saying that they first care about their preferred outcome and then about the mess. Agreed!

No, I'm saying that they don't actually care about the mess, are happy with it, or at best see it as a necessary evil of some kind, and are only saying that they do because they know how it would look if they said the opposite, and it's also a useful way to blame a someone else for their own issues.

[dckingsfan]

So you are saying that they first care about their preferred outcome and then about the mess. Agreed!

No, I'm saying that they don't actually care about the mess, are happy with it, or at best see it as a necessary evil of some kind, and are only saying that they do because they know how it would look if they said the opposite, and it's also a useful way to blame a someone else for their own issues.

Then I respectfully disagree. When I am out canvasing I find that voters are primarily interested in their own interests (you can pick healthcare, abortion, immigration, opioid crisis, taxes, etc..) but the vast majority are disturbed by the "mess" that is our current governing process.

Mabey I am wrong and you have a specific question (or set of questions) that I could ask that would prove your point?

Mine are: What are the top three issues you have for the next POTUS? What are the top three issues that you have for the mayor? What would you like to see fixed within the federal government? What would you like to see fixed in the Houston government?

[I_Like_Dirt]

Then I respectfully disagree. When I am out canvasing I find that voters are primarily interested in their own interests (you can pick healthcare, abortion, immigration, opioid crisis, taxes, etc..) but the vast majority are disturbed by the "mess" that is our current governing process.

Mabey I am wrong and you have a specific question (or set of questions) that I could ask that would prove your point?

Mine are: What are the top three issues you have for the next POTUS? What are the top three issues that you have for the mayor? What would you like to see fixed within the federal government? What would you like to see fixed in the Houston government?

I suppose we're coming at different sets of data in different ways. I don't ask a regular set of questions. My opinion is based simply on longer conversations with people and getting to know them. It's extremely conservative where I live and hard not to get to know people like that.

But I also think this is a definition of things. When you describe "mess" that is our current governing process, that doesn't necessarily mean corruption. It's more frequently a barb at public servants who they feel as though they're smarter/better than but of the opinion that society at large sees it the other way. In some crucial situations, they're right about knowing more and yet nothing changes, while in the vast majority of cases we have they're simply wrong and making some kind of outrageous claim, and it's generally irrelevant to the discussion to try to separate the differences. That's not actually draining the swamp, though. That's replacing the swamp with a swamp that favors you somehow and that's perhaps subtly different but also the polar opposite of actually replacing the swamp.

I also think you can make the argument that many people don't actually believe corruption will ever end (they might be right) and choose not to try differentiating between levels of corruption and have largely decided it isn't worth trying to actually change anything but instead use "drain the swamp" more as a means to target those that are thwarting their political objectives somehow. That's where I mentioned the "necessary evil" bit. Either way, though, if you say one thing and then do another, you're very much not the thing that you claim to be. And if it's simply a matter of being uninformed, that's also tacitly an admission that you don't actually care enough about the issue to even bother informing yourself. Misinformed is a bit more of an interesting debate in that sense, but in my experience, misinformed is often wilfully so as it tends to line up with what they believed before they went out looking for information.

And no, this isn't just Republicans that this holds to. There are plenty of or even people out there who aren't necessarily directly related to either party. Drain the swamp, or any particular reference to stopping corruption, is largely a red herring of sorts in my experience and representative of another issue that either they can't articulate or don't want to.

[dckingsfan]

But then we are getting to the same thing. Folks first want to see their issues moved forward and then they want an efficient and to have government be largely free of corruption (not what we are seeing with Trump).

Where we disagree is that folks of either party (or independents for that matter) are okay with a corrupt government. They aren't.

But what they will do is promote one candidate or party over another to promote their own interests. And that often has the affect of corrupting the process.

[Pointgod]

Read on Twitter

So the President just admitted to colluding with a foreign power and that he’d do it again during 2020. I don’t know what the hell more you need to see. Trump is a traitor and danger to the country. anyone that would still vote for him is absolute trash.

[dobrojim]

This ^ after spending the last 2.5 years calling the Russia investigation a witch hunt and
and accusations of collusion to be completely unfounded as well as obstructing/lying
about his prior acts. It's horrible but the real scandal is that most Republicans are fine with this.
I'm old enough to remember when the GOP at least tried to claim they were concerned about
character and were patriots at heart.

[Pointgod]

This ^ after spending the last 2.5 years calling the Russia investigation a witch hunt and
and accusations of collusion to be completely unfounded as well as obstructing/lying
about his prior acts. It's horrible but the real scandal is that most Republicans are fine with this.
I'm old enough to remember when the GOP at least tried to claim they were concerned about
character and were patriots at heart.

I’ve said that the Republican Party needs to burn to the ground and rebuilt into something else, but some posters on this board have a problem with that. The rot goes all the way from Trump down to the voters. You’re seeing right before your eyes how a country turns into a authoritarian regime. Right wing politics is a cancer on the world.

[Ruzious]

This ^ after spending the last 2.5 years calling the Russia investigation a witch hunt and
and accusations of collusion to be completely unfounded as well as obstructing/lying
about his prior acts. It's horrible but the real scandal is that most Republicans are fine with this.
I'm old enough to remember when the GOP at least tried to claim they were concerned about
character and were patriots at heart.

Maybe - with all the clusterfudge comments coming from the WH it was missed - but Sarah Huckaby roasted the Obama administration a few days ago for allowing Russia to interfere with US elections. How does that reconcile with her thousands of times calling the Russian investigation a witch hunt? It's a direct contradiction, and she doesn't give a f, and Trump doesn't give a f. The WH is a sickening cesspool of garbage that's expanding to the point where a single pin-prick could burst it - allowing the festering maggots to lay their eggs on what's left of any integrity in America's federal government.

[dobrojim]

One can only hope that this is the straw that results in a bunch more GOP congress-critters
going Amash on these corrupt scoundrels. Once the dam breaks, things could go quickly then.

[dobrojim]

For years I'll admit I was not a big Micheal Gerson fan but I gotta give him some props now.

In their day of prayer, Graham and other Trump evangelicals have used a sacred spiritual practice for profane purposes. They have subordinated religion to politics. They have elevated Trump as a symbol of divine purposes. And they are using Christian theology as a cover for their partisanship.

So: This is blasphemy, in service to ideology, leading to idolatry, justified by heresy. All in a Sunday’s work.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/franklin-graham-has-played-his-ultimate-trump-card/2019/06/03/22a50b18-862b-11e9-98c1-e945ae5db8fb_story.html?utm_term=.64e35736f5f2

[gtn130]

One can only hope that this is the straw that results in a bunch more GOP congress-critters
going Amash on these corrupt scoundrels. Once the dam breaks, things could go quickly then.

This is incredibly optimistic. This isn't even the straw for Nancy Pelosi. 2020 is going to be a disaster

[dobrojim]

You might well be correct ^
But if focus groups of the GOP base start getting squishy, things could change.
I know that's asking a lot. Faux News is a very effective propaganda machine.

[Kanyewest]

Nancy Pelosi's justification for not having Trump impeached is based on fear of his poll numbers actually improving if it goes through. That being said, using Bill Clinton as an example of what happens to a president's approval rating seems kind of illogical given that Clinton was a more popular president to begin with, and also started bombing foreign countries. Although maybe Trump would try to go to war with someone.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Where we disagree is that folks of either party (or independents for that matter) are okay with a corrupt government. They aren't.

But what they will do is promote one candidate or party over another to promote their own interests. And that often has the affect of corrupting the process.

They don't want corruption but will ignore it and instead promote corruption, intentionally or otherwise. That's not someone who feels particularly strongly about not wanting corruption unless you choose to define it extremely liberally. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

[Ruzious]

For years I'll admit I was not a big Micheal Gerson fan but I gotta give him some props now.

In their day of prayer, Graham and other Trump evangelicals have used a sacred spiritual practice for profane purposes. They have subordinated religion to politics. They have elevated Trump as a symbol of divine purposes. And they are using Christian theology as a cover for their partisanship.

So: This is blasphemy, in service to ideology, leading to idolatry, justified by heresy. All in a Sunday’s work.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/franklin-graham-has-played-his-ultimate-trump-card/2019/06/03/22a50b18-862b-11e9-98c1-e945ae5db8fb_story.html?utm_term=.64e35736f5f2

It's amazing - a lot of these guys sound and even look like fictional stereotypes.

[Pointgod]

One can only hope that this is the straw that results in a bunch more GOP congress-critters
going Amash on these corrupt scoundrels. Once the dam breaks, things could go quickly then.

This is incredibly optimistic. This isn't even the straw for Nancy Pelosi. 2020 is going to be a disaster

I’ve become super pessimistic about anything politics. You’re seeing it all over the world with right wing scumbags getting elected in Israel, India, Brazil etc. I think that Americans are just too uninformed about politics to actually make a difference. I was watching tv where they were interviewing Democratic activists and one lady was saying that she was disappointed in Obama because he didn’t give fix healthcare. I’m here thinking wtf is Obamacare? The biggest reason Obamacare isn’t a huge success is because of Republican governors and congress critters sabotaging it as much as they can. And that’s just it, a lot of Americans don’t know how politics work. In fact I bet people will be mad at Democrats when Trump isn’t convicted in the Senate. It’s all ****

[Jamaaliver]

World Is Losing Confidence in U.S. Leadership, Report Shows

With few notable exceptions that include the United States, the world reversed a recent trend and became slightly more peaceful in the past year, according to a recently released international study.

And while Canada ranks as one of the 10 most peaceful countries, the overall level of peacefulness in North America declined due to deteriorating conditions in the U.S., according to the 13th annual Global Peace Index (GPI), a study produced by the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace. The independent non-profit think tank ranked 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness.

The U.S. ranks 128th – between South Africa and Saudi Arabia – due to increases in homicide rates and other violent crime, along with continued political instability.

The average level of global peace improved for the first time in five years, but the world still remains less peaceful than a decade ago, the study's authors said. Additionally, global perceptions of trust in the world's most powerful countries has fallen since 2008. Confidence in U.S. leadership has fallen more than confidence in Russian, Chinese and German leadership in the past five years, with people now reporting more confidence in German and Chinese leadership than the U.S.

"Terrorism and internal conflict have been the greatest contributors to the global deterioration in peacefulness," according to the report.

USNews.com

[daoneandonly]

I believe all races care about the political landscape - they just have different preferred outcomes. And I am pretty certain in my heart of hearts that most Americans want the mess cleaned up.

I'm not so sure this is actually true. I think the vast majority of Americans will argue they want it cleaned up but their actions will invariably contradict their words to varying degrees. That's the real problem here. There are quite a few voters out there who actively take an interest in cleaning up corruption, environmental issues, etc. but it's not nearly as high as people think. It's not unlike the abortion issue, really, where there are loads of people who claim they want to prevent abortions but then take actions that have nothing to do with preventing abortions at all and everything to do with punishing/vengeance on those that have them along with a dose of moral superiority. You aren't actually interested in fighting corruption if you're voting for Trump, whether you're aware of his history or can't be bothered to look it up. You also aren't actually interested in fighting corruption if you're there benefiting from it directly or indirectly somehow and quietly letting it slide while really only considering others where that issue is concerned. Heck, I would say unions lost out on fighting for labor when they got into outrageous infighting, cost overruns and defending people who really had no business being defended - though they died for entirely different reasons regardless of what a person wants to convince themselves of.

You still continue to try and paint people who have abortions as innocent, victims, having no other options, and it's ridiculous. Cleaning up corruptions and the abortion issue are apples and basketballs.